Showing that not just anyone can succeed in retail sales

Gateway computers announced that they were closing down the remaining retail stores they have in operation (They closed a bunch down last year, in an attempt to lower costs and get the retail portion profitable) — Of course, if they had actually stocked product in the stores, it might have helped.. they used their stores as showrooms, and customer’s still had to wait and have the product shipped to them. About a year after Apple opened their retail stores, Gateway decided to stock a limited selection of machines in the store.. So, while it sucks for the employees at these stores because they are all losing their jobs by the 9th of April… It does show that specialty retail is not quite as easy as lots of people seem to think.

In an amazing press release from M$…click read more for the details

Redmond WA – Associated Press – This morning, Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates issued a joint statement confirming that there have been no new security flaws found, or viruses released for any version of Microsoft’s flagship product, Microsoft Windows. “This morning, we are proud to confirm that there have been no new security flaws found, or viruses released for Window. This marks the first time in the history of the Windows operating system that we have gone 20 minutes without either a security flaw, or a new virus.” said Bill Gates. Steve Ballmer followed up with “This is the sort of reliability and security that our customer have come to expect from our new security initiative. If our schedule sticks, we hope to be up to a 45 minute period by this time next year”

The full press release is available from Microsoft here

One more thing…. April Fools!

So…. I sent Comcast an email trying to find out more about their DVR

Just little things, like the size of the HD, when it will be available.. .that kind of stuff. Here’s the response I got:

The DVR has an 80-gigabyte hard drive, offering at least 30 hours of

recording time. The variance is based on whether the recorded programs

are transmitted in analog or digital format; digital programs use less

space on the hard drive. Recording programs in HD format requires more

memory, reducing the number of hours of programming that can be stored

to approximately 7 hours.

DVR is currently available in limited service areas but will soon be

available to many Comcast customers. I am sorry but DVR has not yet

been launched in your area. At this time we have no time frame as to

when this will be rolled out in your area.

So…its not available in my area (which I knew)…and from what they’ve told me about the unit, combined with what I’ve read online in reviews of the unit… I don’t think I’ll be getting Comcast’s DVR when it is available… since, it apparently has a shitty UI, bad featureset… and from Comcast’s email… a very short recording time…looks like its a TiVo for me.. that is, as soon as they get around to releasing a stand alone HDTV compatible unit…

So.. the first of the iTunes Music Store competitors begins to close up and go crying to its mommy!

The guys over at AsTheAppleTurns are reporting that someone over at SpyMac has said that BuyMusic.com (No..I’m not going to link it.. I can’t look at it since I use a Mac, so I’m not going to bother linking it) has sent their customers an email stating that they will be absorbed into buy.com over the next couple of days. My guess, is that this is the first step towards closing them down. I’d imagine they have to keep the service running for x amount of time since I think some of what the do is subscription based…but I could be wrong since I can’t even view their website to see what they offer….

It’s true… if you don’t believe me.. keep reading

Here’s proof that blogging has gone a bit… mainstream… click here

Yep… you read that right… the Mars Rover Opportunity has a blog all of its own… And so does the rover Spirit .. you know things are getting common when blogs are being posted from another planet =)

If there was ever any doubt that Microsoft had purchased the DoJ to get its federally approved illegal monopoly… that doubt should be gone now

And all the proof any one would need is the sound bites coming out of DoJ offices… instead of being happy that M$ is finally being threatened with a real punishment… all the sound bites mention how horrible it is that the EU has reached such a decision, and that M$ has already been punished, and the fine is too big (I think the guys over at AtAt had the right idea, when they said the DoJ is afraid that this amounts to a $600 million paycut for them)

This time, its the EU that has smacked them around for being an illegal monopoly, and it looks like their proposed fines/settlement is more severe then the wimpy wrist slap that the US DOJ gave them

M$ will have to pay the equivalent of $613 million.. which for them is no big deal.. the more important parts of the settlement are that M$ must make a version of windoze available to european PC manufacturers that does not contain the crappy Windoze Media Player embedded in it, M$ also needs to release portions of their server code to other server software manufacturer’s so that their servers can interface better with desktops running windoze…

It’ll be interesting to see what parts of the settlement stand up to the appeals processes. All I can say is GO EU! smack M$ around…take away their ball, and send them to their room with no dinner! Oh yeah.. and break up their illegal monopoly while you’re at it!

So… according to CNN, Bill Gates thinks its a good idea

And while I do think that SPAM sucks… I don’t think that charging ‘normal’ people to send an email to their mother, father, friends, mailing lists..etc is the way to combat it. I can see why Gates does…after all.. he’s got more money then he knows what to do with. And its obviously easier for him to say ‘charge people for email’ then it is for his company to write software that’s secure enough to prevent any one of the 81,000 viruses that exist for windows from turning the unsuspecting windoze user’s machine into a zombied spam bot!

Sure.. he can afford to pay for email ‘postage’ but what about those people who think they’re already paying way more than their internet connection is worth, now you want them to start paying more to email their relatives, friends, possible employers..etc? I don’t think the guys in M$ Research who have been working on this for 3 years really thought this one through…

Besides… who get’s the ‘postage’ the ISP that is already over-charging for the service they provide? The recipient’s ISP? The developer of your email program of choice? The government? Me? You? what happens if the sender/recipient are in two different countries? do you pay ‘international’ postage? What if they are on the same ISP, and the message never hits the internet in general? do you still pay? After all… you’re not tying up anyone’s resources except those you’ve already paid for….Nope…Stamps are definitely not a good thing for email… look what the Postal Service’s annual (or at least, felt like annual) increases of a penny for a stamp have done… I don’t think I know anyone who uses the Postal service for more then paying bills now, and thats only those bills that can’t be paid online! charging postage for email will have the same effect on email usage…

Since the CAN-SPAM act amounts to beating the spammers with a wet noodle… maybe we should look for a more realistic law to prevent spamming… the No-Call list has worked for telemarketing (at least for me… we don’t get anywhere near the number of calls we used to), I think a properly ran No-email list could at least reduce the amount of spam floating around. Or, everyone could switch to an email client that has really good SPAM filters in it, and just let them get deleted without ever getting read like I do!

Everyone knows its one of (if not the) fastest, most powerful chips out there.

And even M$ wants in on the action… rumors indicate that M$ is now shipping the Xbox2 SDK… which just happens to be a PowerMac G5 dual processor system….and the Xbox2 is supposed to also contain at least one variant of the G5 chip… so if M$ is truly going to run the Xbox on a PowerPC chip (remember, Nintendo runs the game cube on a version of the PowerPC G3).. I wonder if it would make it easier for game developers to port their xbox games over to the Mac?

Since they apparently can’t patch the security holes in their products….

M$ has decided that the most effective way to try and prevent the rampant exploit of the truck sized holes in their code… is to get schools to hang up posters (link here) that warn about viruses, worms, and hackers (if you leave hackers out.. it almost sounds like a sex ed class)….

Of course..this means we’ll see lots of people ‘modifying’ the posters, to make fun of M$… my favorite so far is here. Hey…maybe M$ can put up a big sign like McDonald’s has (you know.. XX billion served).. M$’s could read “150 Billion viruses and flaws in our products… and counting!”

I should set up a rule to forward all the Spam I get because of these viruses/worms to Billy boys mailbox….